Managing a company in the food and beverage industry is a fascinating task.
Food and beverage products are so deeply rooted in the culture of most countries that making and selling them is not only a matter of making and selling good and tasty products, but products that nurture people's body, soul, and heart. Given this, it's not difficult to see that the task quickly becomes complex.
The objective of this course is twofold: first, we will focus on contemporary challenges that managers and entrepreneurs in food and beverage businesses should be able to face; and second, we will provide models and tools to design and implement appropriate courses of action to satisfy customers and build an advantage over the competition.
This course is made up of four modules and an introduction, each exploring one dilemma that food and beverage companies face. You will be presented with a set of video lectures and guest speakers. These lectures combine an accessible introduction to specific topics integrated with interviews of managers and experts that will give precious insights and examples to the participants.
To enhance your learning experience with us, we will make a Documentary on the Excellences of the Modena District available for you, which is in a format that we have developed specifically for this course in order to give you the chance to experience first-hand the territory as our on-campus students usually do.
Each module is paired with an evaluated quiz and weekly discussion forums to reflect on the variety of the F&B world, its complexity, and the power of the network that we will build together during the course.
Successful completion of the quizzes is required for a course certificate as explained in the Grading Policy.
Below the guest speakers of the course:
Masterchef Italia Sky – Nils Hartmann, Head of Movie Channels at Sky Italia – www.masterchef.sky.it
Eataly - Paolo Bongiovanni, Marketing Director Italy – www.eataly.net
Berlucchi – Paolo Ziliani, Owner – www.berlucchi.it
Joia Restaurant – Alta Cucina Naturale – Pietro Leemann, Owner and Chef – www.joia.it
Branca – Nicolò Branca, Owner – www.branca.it
Barilla – Giuseppe Morici, President Region Europe – www.barilla.com
Proyecto Expo 2015 Chile – Guillermo Ariztia, Chile Pavillon Director – www.expomilan.cl
Winery Il Cavallante, Milano – Sergio Morpurgo, Owner
Heineken – Floris Cobelens, Marketing Director – www.heineken.com
TRDN – Martin Oetting, Managing Director – www.trnd.com
GROM – Federico Grom, Owner and Founder – www.grom.it/en
Tetra Pak – Matthew Hatton, Director Competitor Intelligence – www.tetrapak.com
BioHombre – Matteo Panini, CEO – www.hombre.it
Acetaia Maletti – Carmen & Claudio Maletti
Cantine Riunite & CIV – Vanni Lusetti, CEO; Francesca Benini, Sales & Marketing Manager; Elena Lottici, Export Manager; Mario Vandi, Brand Manager – www.riunite.it
GlemGas – Marco Guerzoni, Program Product Manager – www.glemgas.com
Bibendum Catering – LaFranceschetta58 – Sabrina Lazzereschi & Marta Pulini, Owners and Founders – www.bibendumcatering.it , www.franceschetta58.it
DISCLAIMER - Since most of the videos are conducted with those whose native language is not English, we have decided to sometimes preserve their more emphatic speech to keep a tighter match between the audio and the subtitles.

Taught By

Gabriele Troilo

Associate Professor

Transcript

Foodstuffs and beverages provide consumers with experiential benefits and they’re experience products so the concept of customer experience is fundamental to understand when companies think of the value they want to provide to consumers, but what this consumer experience? Consumer experience is the combination of sensorial experience, cognitive experience, and emotional experience; so it's a combination of emotions, thoughts, and sensations that consumers put in place when they buy and consume a product. The more a product is experiential the more value the consumer gets. The point is how can a company design and highly experiential consumption for consumers? What is important to understand is that consumption experience is only a part of consumer experience. Managers and entrepreneurs tend to consider the experience linked only to consumption. This is not the case. We as consumers experience the product and service much before consumption and also after consumption. The whole customer experience is made of different stages of different components: There is that pre-consumption experience, there is a purchase experience, there is a consumption experience, and there is also a post-consumption experience. What is the pre-consumption experience? It is the experience linked to every activity that consumers put in place before buying and consuming said product. Basically it is linked to information gathering and information interpretation. Information gathering and interpretation can seem and appear like a very functional activity. I collect information because I want to make a choice. But that pre-consumption experience can be made an experience in and of itself. Think, for example, about a consumer who collects information by reading a newspaper, magazine, or website, or going to a shop; the consumer is collecting information but the experiences could all be very different. Take, for example, if the website is very nice or very bad, maybe it is very nice looking or it's very difficult to interact with. The consumer is getting information but the experience is completely different. A company can increase customer experience by improving the experientiality of the pre-consumption stage, the information collection stage. Then comes the purchase experience, the purchase experience can be divided into two sub-stages: one is the choice experience and the second one is the shopping experience. What is choice experience? It’s the experience that consumers go through when they have to make a choice, basically, comparing products and coming up with a final choice. Also this stage can be made experiential. For example, let's think about a consumer, couple, or group of friends who are deciding to spend a weekend in a famous food destination: a city which is very famous for its famous restaurants. Usually when consumers compare alternatives, they anticipate the emotions that they will feel when they go and actually experience the food in that city. That part can be made experiential as well, so companies can increase the experientiality of the choice process. Then there’s the shopping experience, the shopping experience is, by definition, an experience. Let's imagine consumers entering a shop, the interaction they have with the environment, the atmosphere; the communication within the shop with other people and with a shop assistant; and the interaction with the products; this is a true experience. It could be offline as in the examples that I just gave, but also online; so there’s the interaction that consumers can have with websites where they can buy products. Again this is part of the experience. Then there is consumption experience, I’m shocked by the fact that when when managers and entrepreneurs talk about and think about the consumption experience, they make it very simple. Actually the consumption experience is not as simple as it may appear. In fact consumers put a number of activities in place in order to get value out of the product and service. The competence and ability they have in putting these activities in place is what allows them to get the value out of the product and service. What is important is that in many food and beverage businesses, consumption activities are rituals, that is to say, these activities are put in a sequence which is very important from a symbolic point of view. Let's compare, for example, drinking a coffee in a Starbucks restaurant or in a typical Italian Bar. The experiences are completely different because the rituals tend to be different. In Starbucks usually consumers spend a lot of time. They do many more things when drinking a coffee. In a typical Italian bar, when Italians go and get an espresso, the experience is faster. They go, drink, and then go away. The ritual is completely different. Let's think about how many rituals there are when eating out, or when going for an aperitif or happy hour. These are all rituals that are put in place during the consumption experience. For a company, it is important to understand what are the activities, practices, and rituals consumers put in place when they consume a product or service. Then the last stage: the post-consumption experience, it could sound very strange that a consumer can get an experience after the consumption, but think for a little how many people like to share their experience with their peers, friends, and relatives on social networks. This is an experience, it is not only functional: “I want to recommend a restaurant.” “I want to recommend a product or brand that I have already consumed.” The point is that when consumers like to share their experience they are getting more of an experience, they are having an increased experience. Basically, what does that mean? Considering the four stages of consumer's experience: pre-consumption; purchase, which is made of choice and shopping experience; consumption experience, and the post-consumption experience give a more reliable representation of the real consumer experience. For a company, it is very important to understand and have knowledge of the different stages because in all of these stages the company can add experientiality, and by adding experientiality it can add value to the product or service, to the value proposition they provide their consumers with.

Explore our Catalog

Join for free and get personalized recommendations, updates and offers.

Coursera provides universal access to the world’s best education, partnering with top universities and organizations to offer courses online.